Category: Personal Growth

You wouldn’t take a shower in the morning, if you didn’t have the idea to shower first. You wouldn’t be in the field of work that you’re in, unless you had a single thought to pursue it. Every task begins with an idea.

Some of our ideas are big. Really big. They urge us to fulfill a purpose that just feels “right”. I won’t even give you an example of this because right now, as you read this, you have your own example in mind. And chances are that the example you hold in your mind is thee ‘big idea’ that feels right to you.

What to know: As soon as anybody is brave enough to acknowledge his or her big idea, doubt will immediately begin its work on you.

My friend, fellow real estate agent, and mentor, Olivia Chambers, and I did a FB Live last week to discuss the topic of Doubt and its sources (*to see a replay of this go to www.facebook.com/31MainStreet ) I will now expand on the things that we discussed…

The 3 Main Sources of Doubt:

Self

Environment

Natural Obstacles and Challenges

Self Doubt — This can be the most challenging of either of the other sources of doubt, as we can’t escape ourselves. We can leave or change our environment; We can manage or prevent obstacles. While we can’t leave ourself (or get a lobotomy as Olivia jested), we can change, manage, and prevent doubt from creeping in to chisel away at our dream. It should be noted that once we master self doubt, there is no other source that can hinder us, so this is truly the most important to manage of them all. Ways to manage self doubt include…

Walk Like It, Talk Like It, Act Like It – Break it down for yourself. You are not going to conquer it all at once, but by trying simple tasks like adjusting your posture, you can transform your mind in incredible ways. The brain takes cues from the physiological actions of the body, and if you’re standing tall, then you’re doing the “walk like it” part. The “talk like it part” would be repeatedly affirming your own worth. Make so much time to speak and think positively about yourself that negativity doesn’t have space. Suffocate it. So what’s “Act Like It” then? “Act Like It” = “Walk Like It” + “Talk Like It” . Master one. Add the other. Master that. Now, you’re acting like it. Once you’re acting like it, you will be treated like ‘it’. See the domino effect?

Plow Through – You’ve heard the old saying “Feel the fear, then do it anyways.”? Well, yes. Feel it. Maybe give it the middle finger. Then, do what you want anyways because no one tells you what to do. Not even you.

Doubt from Environment — Some of the most well-intentioned people in your environment can create the most doubt in association with your idea. “Innocently toxic”, as Olivia coined. So how do we handle our environment?

Choose your own support system – when you decide to pursue your passion, consider the people in your life who naturally fall in line to support this. Those are your people. You don’t have to cut anyone out per se, but pick and choose where you spend your time.

Understand what they don’t know – they base their opinions from information they’ve collected along their own life path. It’s not your job to explain anything away for them. That will only siphon your energy. Rather, just know that they don’t know. And move on.

Obstacles and Challenges — The word is… SETBACK. There are always setbacks. We have setbacks in tasks that we didn’t even choose for ourselves. Why wouldn’t they exist in tasks that we did choose? You’ll notice Olivia and I laughing during this part of the FB Live (around 2m:50s). It’s because we had the setback of technical difficulties, which led to us losing our entire audience. She and I could’ve easily gotten discouraged and said ‘screw it’ for the day. Instead, we made some adjustments in our technology and tried again. Did it produce perfect results? No. We lost our audience and to be honest, the first recording was a bit funnier. BUT… it did produce a video, which led to this blog post, which is reaching a few thousand people right now. Done is better than perfect. Setbacks are no reason to stop your pursuit to what you want to accomplish. If they make you feel doubtful, recognize it for what it is, and then do it anyways. Plow through.

I’ve been known to say that doubt is a hologram.

What I mean by this: It’s power is only in its illusion. Once you walk right through it, you see that there was never anything to truly fear on the other side. Doubt is the Wizard of Oz. You need only pull back the curtain.